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The Harlem Renaissance
My essay is going to be about The Harlem Renaissance and an important person from the period, Louis Armstrong. The Harlem Renaissance seems to be a very important period for the black Americans and it seems to have an influence in the following years. I want to find out what The Harlem Renaissance was and what Louis Armstrong did for The Harlem Renaissance. What was The Harlem Renaissance? The renaissance started when a group of African-Americans moved from the southern areas to New York. Many of them chose Harlem in Manhattan as their new home and that resulted in The Harlem Renaissance. Harlem has been known as an African-American area since the 1920s. The Harlem Renaissance is a blossoming of the African-American culture in 1918-19371. Harlem is a part of Manhattan in New York City that is known as a very poor area with plenty of crime and gangs. Renaissance means rebirth of music, arts, poetry, and creativity. The renaissance was primarily a cultural movement, but it did not only appeal to African-Americans, also to the white people. The African-Americans moved to Manhattan to get jobs because they were not permitted to work because of the Civil War and it made all races equal2. The purpose of this movement was producing music, art, literature and poems. First of all, it was jazz that put up Harlem on the world map. ‘’Jazz’’-music was made in Harlem. Blues’’ was made to express all the hard times the African-Americans went through. They had the right to express their experiences and feelings through their art, poetry and music. The blacks got the chance to show their talents in the music industry and they made the chance to be different from the Europeans and white people in general3. What did Louis Armstrong for The Harlem Renaissance? Louise Armstrong was born August 4 1901 in New Orleans, Louisiana. He grew up in a rough and poor neighborhood. His mother was a prostitute and his father was working in a laboratory. Apart from his poor parents, he was the grandson of a slave and he still had to deal with segregation and racism. He went to a school only for boys but he ended up dropping out and joined a quartet of four boys to sing on the streets for money4. Louis was arrested and sent to the New Orleans Colored Waifs Home for Boys after he fired a pistol on New Year’s evening. It was about that time, he came in contact with music. Peter Davis was his musical instructor and he do very soon recognize the talent in Louis and he taught him how to sing, play the percussion and the trumpet. He was known as the most famous of all jazz-musicians and when his health went wrong he made a hit called ‘’What a wonderful world’’. ‘’What a wonderful world’’ was a very optimistic and positive approach. It was also an influential piece of art that helped showing some people were still looking at the positive things. He focus on the good things even though there sometimes are tough things going on. His message was that things will get better and that we have to make our world a better place for our children. ‘’What a wonderful world’’ is a song that made people think differently because songs from the period of the renaissance were made of own opinions and thoughts.5 Conclusion: Summary and research question. My research question was to find out what the renaissance was all about. The renaissance is a result of the changes in the black community since the abolition of slaves. The renaissance was basically a cultural movement but it did not only appeal to African-Americans. People moved to Manhattan to get jobs because they were not permitted to work because of the Civil War. The renaissance was in addition created to express all the hard times the African-Americans went through. During the renaissance they had the right to express their self-experiences and feelings through poetry and music. It can also be seen as response to an expression of the cultural and social chance because of the emergence of a new culture. Furthermore my second research question was to find out what Louis Armstrong did for the renaissance. Louis Armstrong did a lot of things for the renaissance. He broke up the rules of being a human. He asked and encouraged people to think about the positive things in life among other things by making the song ‘’What a wonderful world’’. He did almost invent the jazz-music and the problems he has faced through his life were shown in his music. Through his music he proved that whatever life gets us through we will all get succeed in some way or another. ---- 1 http://www.thefreeresource.com/harlem-renaissance-fun-facts-information-and-resources 2 http://hennessyhistory.wikispaces.com/Harlem+Renaissance-2 3 http://hennessyhistory.wikispaces.com/Harlem+Renaissance-2 4 http://sites.psu.edu/tyagi1213passion/2012/11/29/king-of-the-harlem-renaissance/ 5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Armstrong